Australia’s Adoption Apology

What Does the West Australian Adoption Apology Mean?

For so many years, we have turned and looked to Austria as a model for adoption. Australia opened their records. Australia changed adoption practices. Australia does not nearly have the same number of domestic infant adoption as the US does proportionally. Australia honors the mother and child, their bond, values motherhood.

So very far ahead of us in America, and yet, the mothers in Australia kept on pushing for more. Records open; they can find their children that were lost to adoption. Laws change; they have effectively closed the doors to the sad birthmother club and take no new members. Not enough, they wanted more. They wanted the government to admit that they did them wrong. They wanted an official apology.

Mother’s drugged, physically restrained, parental rights stripped and no one cared. The same Baby Scoop Era adoption practices went on in Canada and the USA before they repackaged adoption into “new and improved” open adoption that we have today. Canadian mothers want more too. And so do mothers in the US.

I Didn’t Deserve Their Apology

For me, I didn’t think it mattered. I understood and supported what our other mothers felt they needed, but I have to admit that I fell under that adoption trance again.

I was taught that the way I relinquished was different than the mothers that went before me and it was. Adoption was presented to me as, yes, a story of her redemption. Yes, I am different and in my head, our senior mothers have a right to this demand, this righteous anger, that I do not have. For in ways, in my heart, I know I am not worthy of that anger

It’s not me, that’s not my story. I am not like them.

Just like I was taught by the Adoption Industry that benefited from me thinking Adoption was cool.

They kicked and screamed. I was tricked and chose. Drugged and tied, kept and smiling. Unwed and shamed like dirt or elevated to the strong selfless birthmother. How much of what I feel is still only because it is how I was taught to feel? Adoption was in the stages of being “repackaged” in the mid 80’s and I bought into the program. The apology was not for me. The other mothers deserved it, not me. They suffered where I was stupid.

Formal Inquiry Into Poast Adoption Practices

Of course, I watched, usually only out of the corner of my eye as I ran around on line doing a million other things. Posts on Facebook came with a new regularity. I knew they were getting closer in Australia. Don’t get me wrong, I WANTED it to happen, but it wasn’t on my radar; not my fight, not my right.

I shared. I liked. I rejoiced for our mothers in Australia, watched friends on the news and kept on my merry way. Maybe I even kept it a bit at arm’s length, since I am being honest, because I don’t feel like I deserve it. It’s not me. It’s not my fight, not my right.

And so, I am taken completely aback and downright shocked the next morning; sitting at my desk at work, running around Facebook like I do, and I see this:

Here it is. It says US. And this is me. This is my story. This is my fight. I don’t even know it until I completely break down, at my desk at work, in those HUGE ass gulping sobs like ..I don’t know.. like I have been kicked in my gut and can’t catch my breath. Body shaking, snot blubbering, OMG I am losing it because of a Facebook post? What. Is. Wrong. With. Me.

Never underestimate the power of validation. They saw the truth. They admitted that it was wrong, no, more than that, they said it was a crime. The way mothers were treated in adoption was a crime. Mothers in the US. Mothers like me. Yeah, it’s a government, Yeah, It’s not even MY government, Yeah, they are on the other side of the world. Yeah, I had nothing to do with making this happen.

But, I cried.

And I cried. I sat in my chair and sobbed. And I was completely and utterly shocked that I had so incredibly strong of reaction of a very primal level. Raw stuff. So raw that really, it kind of bugged me out. I really did not expect these feelings at all. So unexpected that it has taken me these last 2 weeks now just to think about the WHY I reacted like that and WHAT the Australian adoption apologies DO mean to me and to US adoption as a whole.

I am still incredibly move by this single sentence, this phrase “confirmed crimes committed against mothers”. And no, it’s not me, it’s not my story; but I know what it means now.

Cruelty and Crimes are the FOUNDATION of Adoption

No, it’s not my story. It’s my preamble. It’s the very foundation of what MY adoption experience. It’s the foundation of ALL our adoption experiences. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US who has had some sort of adoption journey should know that the start of the road began with CRIMES.

Once again, we get to a place where I have to say, it’s not about you, but it is. No, it’s not about me, but it is. This isn’t about what happened to who, when and why; it’s about the adoption industry as a whole being built on some really shaky ground; corruption, lies, cruelty. And yet from this
inhumanity we are supposed to trust that NOW, now adoption is different and it can be a beautiful thing?

No.
Just.
No.

Catholic Health Australia admitted being involved in past forced adoptions and apologized to victims in July last year.

The Salvation Army, who ran Maternity homes in the US and CA is looking into what they did, yet, Galdney, and the NCFA still maintain status quo. There is more noise about another Church examining their practices too. This article is really very good and Origins Canada is making lots of waves.

The churches and religious organizations were often corrupt. The beliefs of the social workers and hospitals were unduly influenced. The profits of transferring the parental rights of children were unregulated and still are. The agencies and lawyers are making profits and using their influence to alter laws to make it easier for them. Adoptive parents were told what they wanted to hear and the natural parents were, and still are lead like lambs to a slaughterhouse.

Can a Leopard Change its Spots?

Can Adoption change? Did Adoption change? Did you forget like me? Did you want to forget and think that we now, are different in some way, that adoption is kinder, gentler, and nicer because now we separate babies and mothers with a smile and an entrustment ceremony? Really, you think so?

Then let me ask you this:Can we wrap up the Holocaust to make it look more appealing? Is it OK because Hitler THOUGHT it was a good idea? Was it OK because the victims really thought they were taking a shower? Can nice shiny uniforms, pretty red flags and healthy blond cheeks can’t hide the stench of 12 million gassed? Or how about this? Can we ignore how AWFUL Hitler was then because we like Germany now?

Yes, Adoption is different now. Repackaged, remarketed and respun; we still are separating mothers and babies for profit and that still stinks. Kind and gentle, the foundation of today’s current adoption practices are built on cruel and inhuman crimes. At the base of all our adoption experiences is a crime.

You don’t have to believe little old me. The freaking Australian Parliament said so!

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About Claudia Corrigan DArcy

Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy has been online and involved in the adoption community since early in 2001. Blogging since 2005, her website Musings of the Lame has become a much needed road map for many mothers who relinquished, adoptees who long to be heard, and adoptive parents who seek understanding. She is also an activist and avid supporter of Adoptee Rights and fights for nationwide birth certificate access for all adoptees with the Adoptee Rights Coalition.
Besides here on Musings of the Lame, her writings on adoption issue have been published in The New York Times, BlogHer, Divine Caroline, Adoption Today Magazine, Adoption Constellation Magazine, Adopt-a-tude.com, Lost Mothers, Grown in my Heart, Adoption Voice Magazine, and many others.
She has been interviewed by Dan Rather, Montel Williams and appeared on Huffington Post regarding adoption as well as presented at various adoption conferences, other radio and print interviews over the years.
She resides in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband, Rye, children, and various pets.

24 Responses to Australia’s Adoption Apology

Good for Australia for issuing an apology, but I find comparing adoption to the Holocaust offensive and overblown. Adoption is bad, and many were hurt. The Holocaust was the murder of 6 million men women and children for no reason other than that they were Jewish, or Gay or handicapped or Gypsies or some Slavs. The two things are just not on the same scale in any way. Such a comparison dishonors the dead.

I’m sorry, Anonymous poster. If all you got out of this is that you think that they comparison between forced surrender and the Holocaust is “overblown” then you missed the entire point of the post! What was described in this post is an ATROCITY. There are many comparisons that can be made between the Holocaust and forcing women to deny their nature and surrender their firstborns for stranger adoption, most especially since both practices have their roots in eugenics. I find the comparison a valid one.

Further, I categorically disagree that it dishonors the dead, as you posit. Rather, I think that using the targeting of isolated populations for eradication as a comparative model HONORS their deaths by using that as a benchmark. Certainly there were holocausts before WW2 and there are still holocausts happening today.

Also, denying the validity of this comparison of atrocities further denies the legitimacy of the right of mothers to demand justice fcr themselves…”its not MY about ME; its not my fight” because I don’t have the right to compare my pain to that of others. Holocaust victim’s pain, to the pain of others to whom atrocities occurred. We DO indeed have the right to make whatever comparison we find valid.

I agree, Claud. I have been banging my head against the wall for years trying to make the case that the current practices of adoption, practices we taught the world, are criminal. All the laws and practices today can trace their roots to the Baby Scoop Era, where the industry was cutting their teeth. Time and again, I have been told that it doesn’t matter, that was then, change the practices today, that the acknowledgement of crimes in the past changes nothing. I disagree, and now I think that you do, too. On the contrary, acknowledgment of the crimes of the past changes EVERYTHING….

I have to agree with anonymous that the comparison of adoption to the Holocaust is grossly offensive and I was both shocked and surprised to find it made on this blog.Interestingly enough, it is a comparison that the Right-to-Lifers also make:http://180movie.com/

However, I do not agree with anonymous that adoption is always bad. Falsified birth certificates are bad and should have gone the way of the dodo, but there will always be some cases where adoption is better than the alternative and really is in ‘the best interests’ of the child.

I also applaud the Australian apology, and agree with Sandy that official recognition of past injustices is an important part of laying the foundation for future good practice. I don’t accept that the BSE ended on the day that Roe versus Wade was enacted, and it makes me sad that some women who were coerced, inveigled or otherwise wrongfully caused to surrender their children after that date should have to feel that their suffering is somehow different or their loss any less because they were supposedly in a stronger position. Coercion, persuasion techniques and duress have a chameleon-like aptitude for change.

I will stand by my comparison and it was meant to be shocking; but I do not believe in the way that it has been chosen to take (though I like Sandy’s explanations just fine).

I could have just as easily gone with any other known and established atrocity: Slavery, rape, murder, 911? Take you pick..really any situation that BEGAN as an act of violence, wrongness, etc will do. Want to do the slavery one ( though that one manages to piss people off too!)

Is slavery good NOW because President Obama is a African America? Did the Civil Rights movement, Rosa Parks and MLK makes the past horrors of slavery disappear in a poof of smoke? No! How about if I said “Racism is different now!” all brightly as if that made racism now OK because it’s not the same as the crime of slavery> ? It’s pretty damn stupid of me to say that isn’t it?

And that’s the point. Get offended all you want. I’m pretty damn offended that people think it’s OK that adoption separated my son from his family.

Was adoption different, was it not? How many angels dance on the head of a pin? I felt I had no choice back in ’66, or if I did, I did not have the strength to execute that choice. Yes, I am sick of hearing how it is different today; in some ways, in many ways, the bill of goods fed to women who relinquish today makes it worse than when I surrendered my daughter for no one told me how I was making the “right” decision or that how much better life would be for my daughter. Even my social worker understood that giving up a baby was a terrible thing for all parties concerned. She only told me I would live and go on, but added that I would never forget my daughter. I think that right up until the end she hoped the father would do what he kept saying he would, that we would be together. And keep our baby.

And of course we can make any comparison we like to how we felt the adoption machinery affected us. To better the future, the past must be accepted.

None of those atrocities really work as comparisons to adoption. The Holocaust is the worst, but comparing adoption to slavery, rape, murder, or 9/11 is also offensive. Most people just turn off complaints about the real problems caused by adoption abuse when anyone makes those sorts of extreme comparisons. It does not lead to enlightenment or sympathy for the cause, but to distaste and rejection of adoption reform and those who promote it. It is counterproductive.

You know, here we go, off on a tangent, completely focusing on the Holocaust, and whether or not the comparison is valid, because it might upset or offend someone! Here’s a thought….WHO GIVES A SHIT IF THEY ARE OFFENDED?!! I find the coercion, dismissal, kidnapping, tying women to beds, refusing them their babies, breast binding, injecting with chemicals to suppress lactation, isolation, and all the rest to be even more offensive! I am offended on behalf of all the women whose babies were taken from them, by hook or by crook. I am offended that women whose babies were taken from them are STILL so damned afraid that they might upset someone if they say the wrong word/speak out/appear angry/appear sad/appear.

What the HELL is wrong with with this picture?! What kind of anger is appropriate? What would be a valid comparison? What could be said that wouldn’t be found offensive by adopters/unwed fathers/paps? How can we make a change, seek justice and not get anyone mad at us? Is that the legitimate question here? Is that what you want to do? Is that how a movement begins? I think that the Occupy people ruffled a few feathers. The Suffragist caused a few harsh words to be spoken in their direction. Carrie Nation probably wasn’t a popular girl. How do you demand justice without pissing someone off?

I am with you, Claud. I get the message of your post. I approve the message of your post. And, I support the message of your post.

“. . . here we go, off on a tangent, completely focusing on the Holocaust,”I did not completely focus on the Holocaust, nor did anonymous1.

” What would be a valid comparison?”How about there is NO NEED for a comparison, that unlawful adoption is and was wrong in itself? That might get more serious attention and respect than fallacious and invidious comparisons.

You could seek justice by sticking to your very strong case that the BSE was a terrible chapter in the history of women and children, that parents and the helping professionals applied undue pressure to force women to surrender, and that some individuals were traumatized for life as a result. Apology, by all means; the rest, no.

The Hitler comparison is destructive because the two events are not parallel and you fuck up your own case by insisting that you don’t care because you have a right to be angry. Current adoption practices are still in desperate need of reform but that does not mean previous practises add up to another Holocaust. It’s one thing to use a lower-case h—quite another to draw comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust. Have you gone to Oświęcim—have you actually walked around and taken in what happened there? HeavensToBetsy referenced a viral right-wing Christian video that starts with the same premise—asking people to defend their pro-choice views based on their negative opinion of Hitler and the Nazi regime. IMO that comparison is manipulative, emotional, and counterproductive except to the people who already hold the views being crammed down everyone’s throat. Your comparison has the same effect.

“They kicked and screamed. I was tricked and chose. Drugged and tied, kept and smiling. Unwed and shamed like dirt or elevated to the strong selfless birthmother. How much of what I feel is still only because it is how I was taught to feel? Adoption was in the stages of being “repackaged” in the mid 80’s and I bought into the program. The apology was not for me. The other mothers deserved it, not me. They suffered where I was stupid.”

This spoke to me so much. I feel like we all have so much in common, but they, they suffered, and we’re raped. I was just brainwashed. I feel like I can’t even complain too much because I have a semi-open adoption, I know where my son is.

But I was tricked, and manipulated. And that will stay with me forever.

I am so happy for these women, especially with what’s happening in Canada right now. My heart is singing for these women!

Great post Claud. Sadly though, I don’t think the U.S. will ever change it’s perception of adoption… Proven by the comments you have received here. I don’t know how anyone could have truly read this post and only had complaints about your use of the Holocaust.

Some people refuse to look at anything other than the sunshine and rainbows of adoption. When your own government is in the business of selling the sunshine and rainbows, it’s gonna be pretty hard to counter.

I have been so prosecuted all for just saying really horrible things to and about a class of people who I am charged morally for caring about. People who are my very own family members, so like to degrade them on-line, and afraid these horrible bullies will not let me be. They are really just horrible so, I correct like correctors do.

Oh the Holocaust comment secretly thrills me, I live on that kind of gristle. Let me go forth and CORRECT! Anonymously of course, because if I have learned one thing, it is that I am the victim here but my compulsion to degrade adoptees and natural moms overrides that. I mean if I need to put you in your place for being so arrogant as to say that adoption hurts I need to degrade you anon. because you are so rude to me when I degrade you! Shame on you!

Claudia, you have been very naughtia! Separating mothers and children is nothing like Hitler, he didn’t separate family members, oh wait, oh maybe he did, but that is not the point. I am very surprised to see you being so naughtia, you have fallen in with a bad crowdia. Don’t forget how good adoption is, but if you do, I will be so very pleased to correctia you. It makes me feel like I am contributing instead of being just a person who is very aware that things need to change and doing fuck-all to change them.

It makes me feel so warm and superioria. So thanks for this post, even though I cower in fear because I am such a cowardia, I still can post anon and miss the whole pointia, but oh do I feel so righteous and smugia.

Don’t tell anyone I was here , because I am just being a jerkia for your own goodia, not because I am a total a-holia.

I’m taking a serious risk by speaking up here… I am not sure if I am an enemy to you and your readers — I really hope not!

I am an adoptive parent seeking to broaden my understanding and see points of view I’ve never considered, for the sake of my child. So all I really want to say is thanks for your blog. I will keep checking in. The last thing I want to do is hurt my daughter, keep her history private from her, or ignorantly contribute to the pain of others. My daughter was fully abandoned so I am not sure whether she will ever be able to find out much about her past, but I certainly appreciate the perspective of natural mothers, adoptees, etc so I can hopefully raise her well and not harm her.

Furthermore, I speak out strongly in favor of adoption… but I am coming to realize that I need more information before I can do so with a clean conscience. Truly, thank you.

Also, a question… no one is against the adoption of children whose parents have died or disappeared, right?

Hi Rachel
Thanks for your perspective on adoption……. you sound like a truly caring person who puts your childs needs before your own. Very heartening to see. …..unfortunately my adoptive parents have been anything but……lying to me from woe to go. They are very manipulative people who use emotional abuse coupled with lies…..so I commend you for being honest with your child & loving them unconditionally : )
I do believe adoption does have successful outcomes I some cases , unfortunately many many do not. Destroying a person’s self esteem is NOT what parenting is about ……… but genuine love is !

I hereby announce that NO, you are NOT the enemy here! In fact, you are probably among many of your own kind: meaning parents who want what is best for their children and learning more and more about what an adoption journey is like..every day. Our paths might be different and how we get here as well, but we can learn together and from each other as we go along!

As much as I speak out against the adoption industry, and hate many of the current practices, I would be an idiot to think that there is never ever ever a reason for someone other than a natural biological parent to care for a child. That’s just not realistic. Will there always be adoption? Probably…Should there be a BETTER form of adoption? YES!

For a true orphan.. aka both parents dead and no family members willing to step in for a child; then of course every child DOES deserve to have a home and a family to care for them.

At this point, in our society, however, what “adoption” means is also the severing of that child’s identity with falsified birth records, name changes, and often an attempted erasure of the child’s previous life. I spend too much of my time and energy fighting for Adoptee Rights to say it’s OK to falsify birth records anymore. So I would say that either “adoption’ changes so that birth records are an accurate reflection of a child’s life..or we need something new to take the place of the adoption system that will meet ALL the child’s needs.

Having read the hoopla over Claud’s mention of the Holocaust in the same piece as adoption during the good old days, I was reminded that whenever I use the word “slavery” in the same essay as “adoption,” lots of people go nuts, yet the two in many ways have much in common: 1) no or irregular record of parentage; 2) no voice in outcome; 3) rules not made by those institution most affects; 4) lifetime enforcement; 5) relaxation of rules left to those in charge, despite initial injustice.

However…today’s column by Bill Maher in the NY Times has a great take on people being offended by well, anything. Can we all relax a bit? There was plenty for me to hate about Juno but I could understand the black humor appeal.

“Having read the hoopla over Claud’s mention of the Holocaust in the same piece as adoption during the good old days, I was reminded that whenever I use the word “slavery” in the same essay as “adoption,” lots of people go nuts, “

I just saw this blog and am nodding,”Good for Austraila’s Government, Good for Claudia!” I have been a birthmother x2 and am alive to tell the horrors of some of my experiences, horrors. Devastating, Incomprehesible to some. Extreme losses for me, my sons and their adoptive families(they wouldn’t admit it as far as I know).I agree, the US needs a MAJOR wake up call around adoption policies and pracatices-A total paradigm shift! Right on Austrailan Birthmom………….It has taken me so many years to come out of the closet from some torturous years spent. After many years of hangin in, tons of personal work I am so glad to know and announce I have two wonderful sons, hope for them, hope for me and our futures Let’s all keep talking, exploring, getting to know all sides/experiences of the adoption triad. I have found we all have a lot more in common than not.

Hey, deflecting jerkwads. Yeah, I’m talking to you. Ever bother learning anything about the human animal? Yes, I said the human animal. We’re animals, did you know that? More to the point, we’re social animals. Even more yet, we are animals more ruled by culture than by instinct. Know what culture is? It’s the rules for behavior that our parents teach us. Learning your culture makes you as much human as inheriting your DNA does. Humans use more culture than any other animal on the entire planet. (And other animals do use culture. Songbirds, for instance, teach their chicks how to sing. Cats teach their kittens how to hunt. Et cetera. But we’re #1 in culture use.)

I don’t suppose you can see any implications here for adoption, can you? Think about it. A child taken from Family A and sold to Family B does not get to learn Family A’s culture. Does not get to identify with Family A. Does not think “we” when thinking of Family A, instead thinks “they.”

When you adopt a child you commit genocide against that child’s family. Since culture’s a good half of what makes you human, changing your culture without your consent is as good as killing you.

Those of you who have lost children to adoption and those of you who are adopted know exactly what I’m talking about. Do you really think that’s the same person they would have been if they had not been adopted? Oh sure, the heredity is still there and they have the same inherited quirks they would have had otherwise. But every single other thing that would have made them your-child instead of stranger-child is ALL GONE.

There’s a reason adoption was embraced by eugenicists and it’s not because they thought the people of the real families of the adopted were worth saving.

It’s just like what’s done to indigenous people. They are not killing off indigenous people anymore, at least not officially. But they ARE stripping indigenous people of their culture, so it is exactly the same thing as if they had committed mass murder.

Take a traditional Mayan, drop them into New York City and make them live like a white New Yorker, they’re not Mayan anymore.

Take an infant from a Mayan family, adopt them into a family in New York City and make them live like a white New Yorker, they’re not Mayan anymore either.

Take a Mayan, shoot him in the head and drop him into an oven and he’s not Mayan anymore. He’s just ash.

Get the parallel now? Shut up if you can’t face the actual subject matter of this post. I am SO SICK of this shit. You don’t even want to know, speaking of indigenous people, how many MORE of those have been slaughtered in the names of manifest destiny and progress, than ever perished in Nazi camps.

I was stunned when the first commenter who complained about Claud’s post bothered to mention gays and disabled people and whoever else, rather than just the Jewish people killed. Normally, folks don’t bother. But let’s not pretend this was something unique in human history. The only things that make it extra-horrific are (1) the technology involved and (2) the better press.

Destroying people is wrong NO MATTER WHO THE PEOPLE ARE. And you don’t have to kill people to destroy them. And in some ways, being destroyed without being killed is *worse*. You’re still alive to know what you lost, and to spend the rest of your life mourning it.

No not your story but certainly mine. Adoptees were acknowledged by this Inquiry, validated for the first time after being abused, bullied and ridiculed by some of the mothers of Origins. This is about adult adoptees, the victims of forced adoption of which I am one, not just about mothers. Adoptees are at the table working on the apology wording – our story and a landmark for adoptees everywhere.